CURRENTS: ARCHITECTURE; Peeking Into a Modern Neighborhood, Germany, Circa 1927

By Aric Chen

Published: November 23, 2006

It is the mother lode of homes by early modern architects: Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Peter Behrens and others. But, set in the hills of Stuttgart, Germany, Weissenhofsiedlung, the landmark 1927 neighborhood built as an experiment in modern housing, is also filled with tenants, which has made glimpses of its groundbreaking interiors all but impossible for outsiders.

But that changed with the opening, last month, of the Weissenhof Museum, which occupies a pair of original semi-detached houses, right, designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. One now offers exhibits on the history of Weissenhofsiedlung -- some of which, including dwellings by Walter Gropius and Max Taut, was destroyed by Allied bombs -- while the other has been restored to its original state.

''This is where Le Corbusier first built after publishing his five principles,'' said the museum's head, Anja Kr?r, reflected in the building's ribbon windows, roof garden (above left), columns supporting the ground level, non-load-bearing facade and (partially) open plan.

The highlight of the interior restoration, by the Stuttgart-based firm Architektur 109, is the second-floor living room; a sliding partition, top left, converts it into two bedrooms, with beds that pull out from hefty cupboards once made of concrete (they were recreated in lighter materials for structural reasons). But most striking are the walls throughout, which bear their original colors, like ocher, sienna and blue. The history of modernism, after all, was not written in black and white.